Talk:Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger as a musicologist

Why anyone would disagree that Percy Grainger was a musicologist is baffling to me. Several sources directly describe him as one, and through his work as an educator and folklorist, it's easy to see why. As mentioned in the sources below, one of Grainger's most important contributions to the field of ethnomusicology was through his use of technology (namely the phonograph) to collect folk music.

• https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1240&context=theses_dissertations
• https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Commonsense_View_of_All_Music/Awo4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
• https://www.google.com/books/edition/Grainger_the_Modernist/Iau1CwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Percy+Grainger+musicology&printsec=frontcover
• https://grainger.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/2036659/PG_and_Folk_Music_catalogue.pdf
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/25654172

Why? I Ask (talk) 09:36, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

It depends on how to define a musicologist, but I am with you in this question. A musicologist isn't only someone who held a professor position with the description, or published scientific standard works. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I want to avoid having a metadiscussion on what musicology is, but I definitely think Grainger fits inside the "studied music" boundary. Why? I Ask (talk) 09:43, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree – PG was no more a musicologist than other collectors of folk music like Bartók or RVW – but I don't feel strongly about it, as I don't think most readers ever look at article categories, which are apt to be footling. Some well-meaning soul added "Military personnel from Middlesex" to Noël Coward's article the other day. Technically correct, as he served briefly in the army in WWI, but not frightfully helpful, it seems to me. In short, I shall not press my objection here. Tim riley talk 11:01, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Bartók's lede literally says that he was a founder of ethnomusicology. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I know. So does Grove. Not the term I'd choose, preferring the OED's take on the meaning, but to each his own. Tim riley talk 13:38, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough; I completely disagree, but fair enough. Why? I Ask (talk) 13:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Well is it really defining enough for a category? The lead doesn't call him one, neither does Grove and the article currently has no source calling him one. Yes he was a folk-song collector (oxford reference calls him that), but that does not automatically make someone a musicologist/ethnomusicologist. In this case, I think the "folk-song collectors" categories suffice. If Grove calls Bartok an ethnomusicologist, but not Grainger, then we should follow suit. Aza24 (talk) 23:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

If it's not too contentious, then could I not add a mention of Grainger's work in musicology? If there are several reputable sources mentioning his involvement in the field, I don't believe it'd be too out of place. Personally, I think that people who collect folk songs, study them, and catalogue them are ethnomusicologists. But Wikipedia is not based on my opinions, it's based on references. (Also, I don't really think Grove is the be all end all.) Why? I Ask (talk) 02:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Aza24 rings the bell and wins a cigar or coconut according to choice, though in reality do any of the readers for whom we are writing ever look at the categories? A few dedicated editors get very excited about them, but as long as something added to categories is not egregiously idiotic or plain inaccurate I'm inclined to ignore it, though I defer to those taking a more purist view. Tim riley talk 23:46, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Short tutorial on misplaced modifiers

Of late the rare Wikipedia editor has been reverting corrections I have made of misplaced modifiers, without showing any understanding of what the error means and appealing to an authority called Fowler (absent from my bookshelf) who apparently condones it. This appeal strikes me as akin to expecting others to let their shirttail hang out over their trousers because some etiquette authority said it might be done. That permission doesn't oblige one to do it, if one sees a reason not to. Because sometimes, as in the example below, misplaced modifiers create confusion, and because they can always be gracefully averted, I find it sensible to do so.

What is the intended meaning of this sentence, taken from a manufacturer's manual:

Only install refrigerant lines outdoors in dry weather.

Any of five meanings could be drawn from it, depending on what the reader considers only to be modifying. If you can't see what these meanings are, the example will be lost on you.

You may say “It doesn’t matter! You could figure it out from the context!”

Sometimes you can...and if there is context. But why should anyone have to “figure out from the context” what a competent writer can easily express with unequivocal and graceful clarity, irrespective of context? Is the job of a writer and editor to make readers work harder than they would need to work if (s)he took the trouble to write clearly?

Please consider also that there may be readers whose first language is not English and whose understanding depends on literal translation. Literal translation of idioms, semantic or syntactic, doesn’t work well. If you don’t know any foreign languages and have never labored to translate idiomatic phrases like il n'a qu'une verbe, this proposition will be lost on you.

When we place a modifier directly before the term it's intended to modify and not before terms it isn't, the meaning is clear. In this case, the writer wished to say, and should have said, Install refrigerant lines outdoors only in dry weather.

A final note on edit wars: they take two to fight: an editor and a reverter. One who tucks in the shirttail and one who yanks it out again. Chenopodiaceous (talk) 00:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Grainger’s students included Viola van Katwijk

This information was removed from the main article: Grainger’s students included American composer and pianist Viola Van Katwijk. (source: Anderson, Ruth (1976). Contemporary American composers : a biographical dictionary. Boston: G.K. Hall. p. 449. ISBN 0-8161-1117-0. OCLC 2035024.).

T. E. Meeks (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

He had a number of students. Why do you feel this one in particular should be called out? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Grainger did not find Viola Van Katwijk important enough to mention in his autobiography, and she is not mentioned in the books about Grainger by Lewis Foreman, Malcolm Gillies, Wilfrid Mellers, John Bird and Eileen Dorum. If she doesn't merit a mention in those full-length books, how much more disproportionate it would be to single her out for a mention in our 7,000-word article. Tim riley talk 08:56, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

"Nineteen pianos with thirty pianists"?

Can anyone verify the claim that Grainger once "used nineteen pianos with thirty pianists" in a performance of "The Warriors"? The reference pdf (a Chandos notes booklet) seems only to be available on purchase. A 1982 recording/documentary (?) of Grainger's Biographer John Bird makes this claim not of Warriors, but of "Lord Peter's Stable Boy". It's unlikely that these exact numbers would have been assembled on two separate occasions, so unless this was in fact the same performance, something seems off. Noahfgodard (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• Update: I was able to find the booklet through my university library, and it seems this was the same performance after all – the notes say 1929 and Bird says 1930, but both claim the concert took place in the Chicago opera house. Bird himself says "...I think...", so it's fair to say the discrepancy of years was a simple mistake on his part. In any case, I think we can disregard my above concern. Apologies! Noahfgodard (talk) 23:32, 3 February 2024 (UTC)